I'm playing whack-a-mole in Siberia

Chapter 617: Bargains are hard to come by

Jamal, Enver and Talaat are known as the Three Ottoman Heroes. They are also the masterminds of a series of genocides within the Ottoman Empire.

After the end of the Balkan War, the Ottoman Empire finally began to face up to its domestic ethnic conflicts.

No one expected that the Ottoman Empire's way of resolving domestic conflicts was not to introduce policies to ease them, but to carry out genocide.

In just two years, the Ottoman Empire used the rebellion as an excuse to massacre at least one million Armenians.

The massacre of Greeks and Christians began at the beginning of the century, killing about 150 million people.

What is particularly unacceptable is that these dead were all Ottomans.

They were so cruel to their own country's citizens, one can imagine the quality of the "Three Heroes".

After Jemal surrendered, Georgy came to Constantinople, hoping that George would hand Jemal over to Greece for trial.

"Yes, but not now."

George agreed in principle, but would not hand over Cemal to Georgi just yet.

Jamal himself knew what he had done, so Jamal's surrender was conditional, one of which was that his personal safety must be guaranteed.

In order to reduce casualties among the troops, Yangkov agreed to Jamal's request.

If George handed Jemal over to Georgi, Jemal would be dead, and his death would be disgraced and miserable.

This would certainly allow the Greeks to get revenge, but it would have a serious impact on subsequent battles.

George comforted Georgi and told him to wait until the war was over.

Georgy agreed, but demanded that the Greeks be in charge of guarding Jemal.

George agreed to hand over Jemal to the Greeks for custody, with the only request being that they don't kill him.

Remember the men who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand?
Since those people were under the age of 20, they could not be sentenced to death according to Austro-Hungarian law.

The gunman who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, Princip, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

After being imprisoned, Princip first had an arm removed for health reasons and was later diagnosed with tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis is a terminal disease in this era.

On the surface, the Austrians did not sentence Princip to death.

In reality, Princip's life is worse than death.

All of Princip's accomplices died of tuberculosis, without exception.

Whether or not he was infected in prison is no longer important.

After annihilating the Jamal Legion, Yankov continued to advance towards the Ottoman capital.

It was against the decadent Ottoman Empire that the British once again exposed their true strength.

Unlike George, the British had already made plans on the Persian Peninsula a long time ago, and one of the clauses of the Anglo-Russian reconciliation in 1908 was the division of the spheres of influence of the British and Russian Empires in Persia.

After the Ottoman Empire declared war, the British army first launched operations in Mesopotamia, with 1.5 British and Indian troops led by General Charles Townsend attacking the Austrian army led by Noordine Ibrahim.

Ibrahim's army consisted of only 1 men.

Facing the British attack, Ibrahim showed weakness, was defeated first and then won, and surrounded the British and Indian troops led by Charles Townsend in Kut.

Townsend organized several breakouts, but was crushed by Ibrahim each time.

British reinforcements were also repelled by the Ottomans.

Townsend sent someone to contact Ibrahim, hoping to surrender in a more decent manner.

Ibrahim refused and ordered the British troops to immediately lay down their arms and surrender unconditionally.

On March 3, the day after Jamal surrendered to Yankov, the British army in Kut surrendered.

When Townsend surrendered, he still had 1.25 troops.

When George received the report, he was speechless.

Demeter reminded George that the British army seemed more dangerous than the Austrian army to the Russian army that was reinforcing Egypt.

George agreed.

Not afraid of god-like opponents, but afraid of pig-like teammates.

So George sent a telegram to Yuri, commander of the First East India Army that was reinforcing Egypt, reminding Yuri not to believe any promises made by the British.

The First East Indian Army commanded by Yuri consisted of two divisions. Most of the soldiers were construction workers from East India, and the officers were Russians who immigrated to East India.

Almost all the construction workers in East India came from Korea and Japan, and some came from East India and surrounding countries. They were more adapted to tropical regions than the Russians.

When he first took over the East Indies, George was full of confidence and planned to immigrate 500 million Russians to the East Indies within five years and build the East Indies into the next Amur.

Now, fifteen years later, there are fewer than a million Russians in the East Indies.

It is true that many Russians have been to the East Indies, and it is also true that many Russians have tried to settle in the East Indies.

Many Russians who had purchased property in East India fled after a winter.

Russian winters are long, cold and generally considered unsuitable for human survival.

The East Indies, where it is summer all year round, are equally unsuitable for human survival by Russian standards.

The First East Indian Army had a total of 3.6 officers and soldiers. Carden hoped that the First Army would reach the front line as quickly as possible to curb the Austrian attack.

George's mission to Yuri was to defend the Suez Canal. The British army's operations had nothing to do with Yuri.

So Yuri refused to fight on the front line, citing the lack of weapons. This is also true.

Since the beginning of this year, Russia's arms shortage has been greatly alleviated, and Constantinople rifles are finally in stock.

The rifle situation in Petrograd was still tight, which was directly related to the Russian army's successive defeats.

George felt nervous when reading the battle report.

Only the Russian Empire could afford the loss of hundreds of thousands or even millions of soldiers.

Let’s not talk about weapons for now.

Although the empire's war potential is strong, it is not endless after all.

Weapons captured by the Germans could be reproduced, but it took 20 years for a soldier to grow from birth to adulthood.

After the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes, the Russian Empire's losses since the beginning of the war had exceeded 150 million.

How many more 150 million are there?
Those who are now enlisting in the army and willing to fight for the Tsar are all the Tsar’s core base.

Sackville Carden was grateful for the arrival of the First East India Army, but was unwilling to replenish its weapons.

Like the Russian Empire, Britain’s weapons shortage has not yet been completely alleviated, and many newly recruited troops are still training with wooden sticks.

Britain had to give priority to meeting the needs of the expeditionary force in France and had no weapons reserves in Egypt.

Since he had no weapons, Yuri had sufficient reasons to refuse to fight on the front line.

How can we fight without weapons? Are we going to attack the Austrian army to death?

Carden hopes that Yuri will put Daju first and send armed troops to the front line first to withstand the attack of the Ottoman Empire.

At the same time, he promised to seek help from London as quickly as possible to replenish weapons for the First East India Army.

Yuri just laughed.

When asking someone to do something for you, you have to have the right attitude to ask for help. This won’t work.

"The Suez Canal is equally important to the Russian Empire—"

Carden reminded Yuri that if the Suez Canal was occupied by the Ottomans, we would all be finished.

"That's why I came here instead of Constantinople."

Yuri concealed his true intentions.

Even if this incident had not happened, the First East Indian Army would not have gone to Constantinople, but would have landed in the Persian Gulf or somewhere along the Red Sea coast.

Carden had no choice but to take out 5000 rifles from the warehouse of the British Mediterranean Fleet and hand them over to Yuri.

With a gun, we can always fight, right?
No.

The Ottomans not only had rifles, but also artillery and war horses.

The First Army has nothing, how can it fight?

While Yuri and Carden were arguing, the British army was losing ground on the Persian Peninsula and was completely unable to stop the Ottoman army's attack.

Unlike the British army's defeat, Yangkov's attack on the Anatolian Peninsula was unstoppable.

After annihilating the elite Austrian troops, the Austrian troops in the second line were all newly mobilized recruits. They could only be used to bully the unarmed Greeks and Armenians, and were nothing but chickens and dogs in the face of the Russian army.

On March 3, Yankov defeated the Austrian 13th Army led by Ismail Enver in Bolu.

The 7th Army was hastily formed with only more than 100 artillery pieces. It took Yangkov only four hours to break through the Austrian front line.

Due to time constraints, the Austrian army did not have time to build a complete position, and the temporary positions had no depth at all.

So after the Russian breakthrough, a terrible rout occurred.

The weather in March has started to warm up. Since Bolu is a mountainous area, the snow melts later than in the plains.

The Austrian army's rout was in complete disorder; Enver did not even leave behind a rear guard, and the Austrian army almost fled in panic.

Transportation in the mountains is very bad. The mountain roads are rugged, narrow, slippery and muddy. There is snow in the shady places, which becomes as smooth as ice after stepping on it.

Many Austrian officers and soldiers slipped and fell into the ravine during the retreat, and more people had no way to escape because the road was blocked and they could only raise their hands in surrender.

In just two days, the 14th Army wiped out 1.5 Austrian troops and captured 6.5.

Yankov captured so many prisoners that his troops had to stay in the Bolu area for three days.

Georgy was disappointed that Yankov did not catch Enver.

This person is also one of the "Three Heroes".

Perhaps the British were stimulated by the rapid advance of the Russian army in the Anatolian Peninsula.

On March 3, just one day before the 17th Army arrived at the capital of the Ottoman Empire, British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill sent the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps to land in Mersin to secure British interests in Asia Minor and the Persian Peninsula.

What Churchill did not expect was that the British army was facing not Jamal or Enver, but Mustafa Ataturk.

In Churchill's view, the Austrian army, which had suffered a series of heavy blows from the Russian army, was already at the end of its strength. It only took a light kick on the dilapidated house of the Ottoman Empire, and the sick man of Europe would collapse.

This was not Churchill's original idea. This argument has been circulating in Europe for more than half a century. Since the tenth Russo-Turkish War, the whole world has been waiting for the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.

As the oldest empire, the Ottoman Empire has a history of more than 600 years.

There must be a reason why it has remained standing for 600 years.

(End of this chapter)